The five-year contract is to underpin logistics data management. The MoD will be providing hosting, however, on JSP 604 compliant, UK-based data centre.

(JSP 604 is a set of rules for systems interacting with sensitive UK networks)

The MoD needs both a NATO-compliant solution/service, which supports both NATO-specific data and Supply Management Data (SMD) across the UK.

“The authority is procuring an end-to-end managed service, including application, service management, interfaced with existing logistics applications and wider service management arrangements” the MoD said in a tender published today.

MoD Data Contract: What’s Needed

The MoD said the deliverables it is expected to achieve include:

“1) A NATO-compliant, cost-effective Information solution/service to support Logistics Codification activities;

2) Strengthened Master Data Management and reduction in data quality issues within logistics Information Systems;

3) An “evergreen” solution/service, open and supportable into the future, aligned with the MOD Defence Information Strategy.”

The service will need to provide proven NATO-compliant capability to support the codification of NATO data (i.e. a solution currently in use in a NATO member country for the codification of logistics data) and must be licenced for approximately 300 MoD codification users (MOD) including sub-contracted Contractor Logistics Support.

NATO Codification is the primary means of item Identification and management used by over 60 NATO and non-NATO nations worldwide.

It establishes a common supply language throughout all logistics operations and enables interoperability of materiel between Armed Forces.

Central to such codification is the need to optimise resource management by avoiding duplication within inventories and facilitates Master Data Management.